He cut short a throwing session at Citi Field on May 25 because he was still experiencing discomfort in his strained right lat muscle.

“Gee did not feel comfortable today throwing a bullpen,” GM Sandy Alderson said that Sunday. “So, we’ll back him off a little bit.”

In eight starts before going on the disabled list May 14, Gee was 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA.

Matthew Cerrone, Lead Writer

At this point, I’m thinking we don’t see him back pitching for the Mets until at least the end of this month. He’ll need to ease back in, then throw a bullpen or two, see how he responds, then – assuming everything goes well – make a rehab start, or two, at which point we’ll be pushing late June. In the meantime, Daisuke Matsuzaka will continue to fill in, unless the Mets decide to bring back Rafael Montero. It’s such a shame for Gee, who really had been cruising for the last year or so.

As much as I like Dice -K....I think it would be better to have Montero back since he should get better as he learns more where as Dice-K has reached his ceiling. and will not benefit us in the future.

The issue is the Mets have stated he did not have a set back. They are a PR disaster. Jay Horowitz is great guy and served his time well, but time has passed him by. It's time to get younger and more in tune with the fan base.

Let him take his time. The starting rotation is the strongest part of the team. One wild thought, if Dice-K pitches well as a starter maybe we can get something for him at the deadline. Remember 6 years ago this guy was the $100 million dollar man from Japan.

@Albert E Lewis Montero is a control pitcher who hasn't mastered his control on a consistent basis, yet. He'll be back, but while the only thing carrying this team is starting pitching, the ML mound is no place to work out the kinks. If we had some offense? Sure.

Matsuzaka costs us almost nothing, and he's pitching really well - his ERA is lower this season than it was in 2008 when he went 18-3 for the Red Sox. Thus, for the moment putting Matsuzaka in the rotation is all up-side. If Matsuzaka continues to pitch well he'll find himself on a contending team in August, we'll have some new prospects in the system, and Montero will be back.

@Steven Glansberg And, how many runs would his fielding have cost the team. Cruz makes Bobby Abreu look like Juan Lagares. It would be like when Rusty had to play the outfield in that game in '85. I'm not a fan of Chris Young, but I am tired of hearing about Cruz. Unless the Mets signed him to play first, he had no place on this team.

@Steven Glansberg I appreciate the fact that you're trying to give them value in return. Too many times we see a trade like Satin and Lucas Duda for Goldschmidt from fans. I think that's a bit much to give up though, plus by giving up both d'Arnaud and Plawecki, you're leaving us with no catcher (they could have one or the other, not both.)

The amount of runs lost that would have been directly attributed to Cruz's glove would be very small compared to the amount of runs that Chris Young has lost at the plate so far this season, and will continue to do so. With Lagares or denDekker in CF they could have easily covered more of Cruz's ground in LF, essentially limiting his fielding chances.

CY/EY aren't that strong in the field anyway, and you could always play Cruz at first. Did you watch yesterday's game? We had men in scoring position practically every inning, loaded the bases with no out and the middle of the order and had 1 run. Cubs get one good swing and that's 1 run. If you're not going to field a team of .270 plus hitters, you need to have 30 hr hitters. CY was signed for his power which is what makes this situation so frustrating. He wasn't brought in because he could hit .300, play gold glove caliber d, and steal 30 bases. He was brought in to hit .240 and 20 hr's. Cruz has been a CONSISTENT power threat for years, and we signed another steroid player this very offseason.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20 and no one saw Cruz going 1 year 8 mil, but CY, especially given our payroll was a terrible terrible deal.